Avenues of Transformation

Illinois’s Path from Territory to State James A. Edstrom

“From cover to cover, this reads as political history at its best. James A. Edstrom unpacks the political landscape of the state, and the nation, and succeeds like no other in recreating the personal and political dimensions of early Illinois. It will be an indispensable study of Illinois’s statehood for years to come.”—M. Scott Heerman, author of The Alchemy of Slavery: Human Bondage and Emancipation in the Illinois Country, 1730–1865

A territory split by slavery, a state forged for union

Paper: 978-0-8093-3910-5

E-book: 978-0-8093-3252-6 $24.95, 258 pages, 50 illus.

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Dennis H. Cremin is the coauthor of Chicago: A Pictorial Celebration and contributor to The Encyclopedia of Chicago. He has extensive experience as a public historian, serving as director of research and public programs for the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s Gaylord Building Historic Site and as a State Scholar for the Illinois Humanities Council. He served on the Road Scholars Speakers Bureau, provided guided tours for the City of Chicago’s Office of Cultural Affairs, and worked as an archivist for the Grant Park Music Festival. He is an associate professor of history at Lewis University in Romeoville, Illinois.

On November 4, 2008, when president-elect Barack Obama celebrated his victory with more than one hundred thousand supporters in Chicago, everyone knew where to meet. Long considered the showplace and cultural center of Chicago, Grant Park has been the site of tragedy and tension, as well as success and joy. In addition to serving as the staging grounds for Abraham Lincoln’s funeral procession through the city, the park has been the setting for civil rights protests and the 1968 Democratic National Convention demonstrations. The faithful attended the open-air mass of Pope John Paul II in Grant Park, and fans gathered there to cheer for the Chicago Bulls after their championship wins. The long park overlooking the beautiful waters of Lake Michigan has played an active part in Chicago and U. S. history.

In 1836, only three years after Chicago was founded, Chicagoans set aside the first narrow shoreline as public ground and declared it “forever open, clear, and free. . . .” Chicago historian and author Dennis H. Cremin reveals that despite such intent, the transformation of Grant Park to the spectacular park it is more than 175 years later was a gradual process, at first fraught with a lack of funding and organization, and later challenged by erosion, the railroads, automobiles, and a continued battle between original intent and conceptions of progress. Throughout the book, Cremin shows that while Grant Park’s landscape and uses have changed throughout its rocky history, the public ground continues to serve “as a display case for the city and a calling card to visitors.” Amply illustrated with maps and images from throughout Chicago’s history, Grant Park shows readers how Chicago’s “front yard” developed into one of the finest urban parks in the country today.

Avenues of Transformation traces the surprising path, marked by shame, ambition, and will that led to Illinois’s admission to the Union in 1818. Historian James A. Edstrom guides the reader through this story by associating each stage of the narrative—the original statehood campaign, the passage of Illinois’s statehood-enabling act by Congress, and Illinois’s first constitutional convention—with the primary leaders in each of those episodes. The lives of these men—Daniel Pope Cook, Nathaniel Pope, and Elias Kent Kane— reflect the momentous tangle of politics, slavery, and geography. This history maps the drive for statehood in the conflict between nation and state, in the perpetuation of slavery, and in the sweep of water and commerce. It underscores the ways in which the Prairie State is uniquely intertwined—economically, socially, and politically—with every region of the Union: North, South, East, and West— and captures the compelling moment when Illinois statehood stood ready to more perfectly unify the nation.

This volume is the first full-length book in over a century to describe and analyze Illinois’s admission to the Union. It marks the first time that a historian has analyzed in detail the roll-call votes of the first state constitutional convention, seated evenly by pro- and antislavery delegates. Edstrom’s wit and prose weave a lively narrative of political ambition and human failure. Patiently crafted, Avenues of Transformation will be the first source for readers to turn to for gaining a better understanding of Illinois statehood.

Paper: 978-0-8093-3876-4

E-book: 978-0-8093-3877-1 $26.50, 274 pages, 17 illus.

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Paper: 978-0-8093-7010-8, $22.50

E-book: 978-0-8093-7011-5, $14.99 200 pages, 14 illus.

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